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TFFT: Love Is A Verb.

I was just a young, newlywed, when I was speaking at a international conference and heard an older couple speak on their relationship. They talked about love and it has always stuck with me. They shared that real romance was not the rockets and fireworks that are supposed to go off when you connect with that special someone – it was about the many loving little unsaid attentions and kindnesses to each other through out the day that set the stage for those fireworks to happen. Romance takes works, it takes an eye and heart focused on the actions of their feelings, not just the words slipped into the sheets, along with two bodies, at designated times.

We quickly learn that many people say “I love you,” when their actions scream the exact opposite.

Sometimes I feel the “I love you” is like a shiny bauble waved in front of people to redirect their attention.

The sad thing is that the good people stay awake at night worrying about how things happened, and if they did something wrong or unkind. They consider the possibility that maybe they were in the wrong. They worry about the other person, they want to make things better if they can. The people who really need to be asking themselves those questions seldom do.

We cannot control their journey.

But we have to stop allowing them to influence ours where we take on us their toxicity and blame ourselves.

Love yourself enough to make parameters around you. Who are you? What do you want in your life? What do you need?

If a doctor told you that you needed an apple a day to live a more healthy life you would not think twice about making sure you had apples available to you for each day. Why then are we so loathe to say to ourselves that negative interactions with negative people or people who are always fighting with us or causing problems, is not healthy for us and we need an environment where we can have the peace we choose. We have a right of choice as well. When ever anyone forces their rights to be negative and destructive over top of our own, ignoring who we are and what we need, you have to know this is not a person who is ever going to make decisions that include your best interests.

Cut them loose. Acknowledge that they must deal with their own problems. Affirm that you are worth fighting for and you have made a choice for you. Smile about that. Recognize the power of it. Feel the love in that.